A PARTY OF GOVERNORS
BARONE, MICHAEL
A PARTY OF GOVERNORS By Michael Barone It was an election about nothing, an election to determine the outcome of an issue—impeachment—about which few candidates had anything to say: That verdict...
...In the race for governor of Minnesota, suburban mayor and former pro wrestler Jesse "the Body" Ventura and St...
...The result proves not that California voters are unready for radical change, but that the Republican nominee was uninterested in providing it...
...Other victories deserve notice as well...
...Even Pataki's opponent, Peter Vallone, though a serious officeholder, failed to run a serious campaign...
...long expected and overwhelming...
...But Davis was too smart to let that label stick...
...What about the Democrats' wins in South Carolina and Alabama...
...Meanwhile, Lungren had relatively little to say about education...
...In Illinois, George Ryan exploited splits in the Democratic party to stretch the Republicans' hold on the governor's mansion past 22 years...
...A PARTY OF GOVERNORS By Michael Barone It was an election about nothing, an election to determine the outcome of an issue—impeachment—about which few candidates had anything to say: That verdict has been voiced repeatedly over the last few weeks...
...In state after state, there is a consensus on public policy, forged by once-controversial Republicans, which is considerably to the right of the consensus Bill Clinton has hoped to forge nationally...
...Dan Lungren, the Republican candidate, spent most of his fall advertising funds on crime, hoping to establish that Democrat Gray Davis was as much of a squish as his boss of 20 years ago, Jerry Brown...
...These changes are wildly popular...
...The most important victories may well be those that got the least notice on election-night broadcasts, because they were Michael Barone is a senior staff editor at Reader's Digest and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics...
...And they have been declining as steeply as they increased in the awful decade between 1965 and 1975, when welfare rolls and crime tripled...
...Some of the other challengers—Geoffrey Fieger in Michigan and John J. Hooker Jr...
...in Al Gore's Tennessee—were an embarrassment...
...And not so much the federal government in Washington, where deadlock between the parties seems likely to continue, as government at the state level, where real changes have been wrought in the 1990s, changes measured in lower taxes, shorter welfare rolls, and decreased crime...
...But it was Davis who emphasized education reform, with a serious program crafted to be minimally unacceptable to the teacher unions...
...Second, and more important, Tuesday's gubernatorial victories show that Republicans elected by narrow margins and championing policies attacked by Democrats and editorial writers can build a consensus when they put those policies into effect...
...Interestingly, this is an economically regressive plan: Lottery players are mostly low income, and scholarship winners tend to come from middle and upper-income households...
...Examples: Pataki and tax cuts, Engler and welfare and education reform, Thompson and welfare reform, Sundquist and tax cuts, Bush and tort reform and welfare reform...
...But in fact, like most elections, this one was partly about government...
...In big state after big state, the incumbent Republican governor had no serious opposition: George Pataki of New York, Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, John Engler of Michigan, Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin, Don Sundquist of Tennessee, and George W. Bush of Texas...
...But the plan's popularity is proof that voters are less interested in progressive taxation than in rewarding students' merit...
...And what about California, where Republican governor Pete Wilson is term limited...
...The result has been—with the conspicuous and important exception of California—a set of smashing victories for Republican governors...
...In Ohio, a lackluster Bob Taft succeeds two-term Republican governor George Voinovich, prolonging one party's control of the governorship beyond eight years for the first time in 99 years in often-pivotal Ohio...
...Analysts attribute voters' positive attitudes about the direction of the nation and most politicians to the economy...
...Where it has strong candidates it can win impressive victories...
...In the last five years, both have been cut by about one-third...
...Voters want reform, even radical reform, of governmental institutions that aren't working, but reform that is conciliatory, not confrontational in tone...
...Each became so popular that he attracted no real competition...
...The lesson for 2000 is clear...
...That is encouraging for Republicans as well as New Democrats...
...These victories carry implications for the future of American politics...
...Over the last 25 years, while Democrats allied with teacher unions, the schools of education, and Sacramento bureaucrats have had custody of California's public schools, test scores have sent the state plunging from the top 10 in the nation to number 49...
...They can both be attributed to the popularity of outgoing Georgia Democratic governor Zell Miller's lottery, whose proceeds pay for college scholarships...
...These cuts have been almost entirely the work of state and local officials, mostly Republicans...
...But welfare and crime are important, too...
...Republicans should not be afraid of championing radical reform...
...Paul mayor Norm Coleman held Democratic-Farmer-Labor nominee Hubert Humphrey III to under 30 percent of the vote—exactly 50 years after Humphrey's father won election to the Senate and became a national spokesman for Democratic liberalism...
...and surely that is one factor...
...But where it does not, it can implode...
...Even the editorial writers ended up endorsing them...
...John Rowland's tax cuts produced a landslide over Democrat Barbara Kennelly...
...One is that the Democratic party, should it lose control of the Lincoln Bedroom, has little institutional strength...
...Each first won office by a relatively narrow margin, in a state where Democrats had run serious candidates for many years...
...In Connecticut, Gov...
Vol. 4 • November 1998 • No. 10
